A Curious Little Blog

Biden has now rejoined the Paris climate accords.  Back when Trump withdrew from them, there was a lot of talk about how there was no need to withdraw since all the targets were voluntary anyway.  (One wonders what the point of being party to the agreement is in that case, but we'll leave that aside.)  In what I believe to be an unprecedented developement, private organizations in France sued the national government for failing to live up to its commitments under the agreement and actually won in court.  This is unusual on multiple levels.  For one, I'm not sure what standing any group could possibly have to sue its government over an international treaty.  Perhaps that is a nicety of common law as opposed to Roman law; I don't know enough to say.  For another, it is hard to see exactly what this suit achieves for the plaintiffs.  The court ordered the government to pay one franc as a fine, and I don't see any other remedies included, so it is di...

I dissent from what appears to be general support for President Trump's designation of Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.  There are several layers to unwrap in this dissent, however. First, the cartels are obviously criminal organizations, and I support whatever we can do to combat them within the existing law (which, I imagine, is a fair amount, at least as far as their American activities are concerned). Second, it is possible that the cartels meet the definition of a terrorist organization under whatever act it is that authorizes the designation of terrorist groups.  As far as I can tell from the State Department website , the three criteria for the designation are that an organization (a) must be foreign, (b) must have the capability and intent of engaging in terrorism, and (c) must threaten the security of the U.S. or of U.S. nationals.  The first and third are undisputable.  The second is probably true, insofar as the cartels use "terrorism" ...